posted
Short background info - I'm doing a web page project for a final grade in a class on Romantic poetry on the web. No kidding. Really. Great class, fun topic.
But we have to do a final project where we take a poem by a Romantic poet and put it on the web, along with information for scholars who might want to study the poem. It's a group project, with students from my uni in collaboration with students in Finland at the Univ of Helsinki. Anyway, I'm the only person in the group with any html experience, and that's sad because my experience is not much. However, writing the markup is my job - and I've got a shell of a website put together and I need to get it online so my other group members can see it and comment and make suggestions.
However, I can't get any FTP client to work. I've got webspace available on the university server - I can connect to the server, it prompts for my password, it accepts it, but then it times out and never gives me a directory listing. I've tried both File Zilla and FTP Voyager. Once I couldn't get the university server to accept my files I tried uploading them to my personal webspace with my internet provider and the same thing keeps happening. Here is a sample of what File Zilla is giving me:
code:
Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message... Response: 220 norm FTP server ready. Command: USER ward1130 Response: 331 Password required for ward1130. Command: PASS ******** Response: 530 Login incorrect. Error: Could not connect to server Status: Resolving IP-Address for www.dpo.uab.edu Status: Connecting to 138.26.1.116:21... Status: Connection established, waiting for welcome message... Response: 220 norm FTP server ready. Command: USER ward1130 Response: 331 Password required for ward1130. Command: PASS ********* Response: 230 User ward1130 logged in. Command: SYST Response: 215 UNIX Type: L8 Command: FEAT Response: 500 'FEAT': command not understood. Status: Connected Status: Retrieving directory listing... Command: PWD Response: 257 "/" is current directory. Command: TYPE I Response: 200 Type set to I. Command: PASV Response: 227 Entering Passive Mode (138,26,1,116,217,205) Command: LIST Error: Connection timed out Error: Failed to retrieve directory listing
This is the test File Zilla ran with their connection wizard:
code:
Connecting to probe.filezilla-project.org Response: 220 FZ router and firewall tester ready USER FileZilla Response: 331 Give any password. PASS 3.0.8.1 Response: 230 logged on. Checking for correct external IP address Retrieving external IP address from http://ip.filezilla-project.org/ip.php Checking for correct external IP address IP 75.90.68.126 hf-ja-gi-bcg Response: 200 OK PREP 1154 Response: 200 Using port 1154, data token 403121291 PORT 75,90,68,126,4,130 Response: 502 Port mismatch. Tainted by router or firewall. PORT command tainted by router or firewall. Connection closed
So, is there a problem with my router? I disabled my firewall temporarily and that hasn't helped. Any suggestions? I'm beginning to get desperate as the other group members want to be able to see the webpage before our first draft is due on Thursday.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Try uploading from a university computer if you can - being inside the network should "solve" the pasv problem you are having.
Posts: 81 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Unfortunately that is not really an option - most of my work on this project is from home on the weekends, when I'm not on campus. Campus is a 30 mile drive, not something I can just hop in the car and be there in five minutes.
I'm so frustrated right now I feel like crying. I've searched for the error codes online, made all the suggested changes to my router and firewall settings, and nothing helps.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Belle, I'm not completely sure, but it looks like you might be running afoul of the university's firewall.
There are a couple of ways around this. First, you could, as Olor suggested, upload it from the uni machine. Alternatively, your university quite likely has instructions on how to create a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to their system. If you do this from your home machine, you should be able to ftp the files where you need to.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Squicky, I can't access any ftp server, not just my university. I can't access my provider's ftp server nor any other I've tried. I think it's an issue with my router settings, but darn it I can't figure it out.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Belle, I thought I made a post, but I'm not seeing it.
What is likely happening is your are running into problems with the university sercurity.
Since uploading from a uni machine isn't really an option, I have two suggestions. Frist, is there a computer help person at the uni you can contact? They'd have the best idea of what is going wrong.
If that's not available, your problem is possibly due either to them allowing only certain secure ftp clients to access the system or not allowing outside ftp access.
For the first problem, you'd need to find if they provide/suggest using a particular ftp client/settings. For the second, you'll want to look for instructions on how to create a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to the university system. That will put you (vitually) inside their system and you should have security problems.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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For your sanity, try hooking your computer directly to your cable or whatever you have the router plugged into. Open the ftp and pasv range on the firewall (or disable it) and see if you can send that way. If you can't connect at that point, it's the university firewall, or your ISP is blocking something critical.
Posts: 81 | Registered: Jan 2001
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VPN is a way of getting "on the university network", but from home (Virtual Private Network). So when you have made the VPN connection, you just do things the regular way you would do them (hopefully more successfully in your case).
Posts: 81 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Well, nothing has worked. Except going really old-school. I by-passed the router, plugged the ethernet cable from the modem directly into my laptop, and then when it still didn't work, I opened a cmd prompt and did things the old fashioned way. Believe it or not, I still remember some of those old FTP commands. That actually worked - the page is up, and good enough that my fellow classmates can look at it and make suggestions.
So I can do it, but it's a pain - and I don't get how I can use ftp through the command prompt but not through the ftp client.
Once I connected to the VPN I didn't notice anything different - what should I be looking for? I mean, would I see another directory somewhere? I'm confused.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
A VPN is just a way of creating a 'direct' network connection, putting you on the 'local' school network by using encryption to hide what's in the traffic from intervening steps.
All it means is that everything you use when connected will act like you are on the campus network. For instance, many campuses have journal subscriptions accessible from the campus network only; those should work.
It will be a little slower, because there's a lot of extra route length and work going into your internet usage, but that's rarely very noticeable.
edit: I'm surprised your school has an FTP option, even on the local network. That's a swathe of compromises waiting to happen, given how porous campus networks are. Best practice right now is to require people use SFTP.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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